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Arrive, Survive and Thrive in Prof. Nixon’s Classes, Fall 2012 Edition

Image Credit: “Pink Water Lily” by Barbara Nixon

An Open Note to All of Prof. Nixon’s Students:

Welcome back to our Communication Department at Southeastern University; I hope your summer break was a blessed one. I spent a lot of much-needed time with family, along with moving from Florida to Arkansas.

To get ready for your Fall 2012 classes, please read the following.

Materials for COMM 4363 (online course, Term A)

Materials for COMM 3333 (online course, Term B)

Getting Inside My Head

So that we can make the most of this semester, please (Please, PLEASE) take some time to read through the blog posts I’ve included here. I promise you, it will be well worth your time. (How often do professors let you get inside their heads, letting you know their tips for success and their pet peeves?)

Additionally, here are a few more tips:

  • When communicating with me via e-mail (or Facebook), always put your course number (such as COMM 4363) in the subject line to help me immediately identify who you are and frame your questions or comments. Do your best to write in full sentences, paying attention to standard English grammar and spelling. Always sign your e-mails with your first and last name, as your e-mail address will not make that readily apparent to me.
  • When submitting an assignment in MyFire, always put your last name as part of the file name, and also include your name in the document itself. Papers submitted without your last name as part of the file name cannot earn full credit.
  • If an assignment is due in MyFire, the only way to get full credit for the assignment is to submit it in MyFire. (E-mailing an assignment to me can be risky; I receive 250+ e-mails a day, and there’s a chance I will not even see it in my inbox.)
  • Follow me on Twitter, if you really want to get inside my head.

Let’s make this a great semester together!

(PS: If you’re one of my Fall 2012 students reading this post, please leave a reply to this post so that I can know you have read it. If your reply doesn’t show up immediately, no worries — I may need to approve it before it appears, if you’ve never commented on my blog before.)

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5 Painless Tactics for Keeping Current in Public Relations and Social Media

give me five!
Photo Credit: Martin Fisch via Compfight

At the Public Relations Council of Alabama’s PR:Recharge Conference this month, I was asked to share Fully Charged Social Media Strategies with a great group of public relations practitioners, professors and students. One thing we discussed was how to keep current in our ever-changing world of PR.  Here’s a quick guide to five of my painless tactics.

One: Read PR blogs.

There are hundreds of blogs about public relations. I’ve bookmarked many of them in Diigo for you. You can subscribe to them using your favorite RSS reader (such as Google Reader), or just read them on the web. Some of the most helpful blogs I’ve discovered include Gini Dietrich’s Spin Sucks and Shonali Burke’s Waxing Unlyrical.

Two: Subscribe to daily or weekly PR e-mailed newsletters.

My favorite PR newsletter is from Ragan Communications: the PR Daily newsfeed. When I want to read the latest on PR, this is the newsletter I turn to first. And since it comes directly to my inbox each morning, it’s easy to quickly skim the day’s hot topics.

Three: Listen to PR podcasts.

Some of my favorite podcasts are: For Immediate Release, Inside PR, PRStudCast, Trafcom News, Marketing Over Coffee and Coming Up PR. My favorite time to listen to podcasts is during my (almost) daily two-mile walks in this sweltering Florida heat. I also listen to them when I drive, work out and clean the house. Some people prefer to listen to podcasts on their computers; my preference is listening to them on my Motorola Photon or iPod.

Here’s a short video on how to subscribe to and download podcasts using iTunes. If you’re not an iTunes person, you may want to visit Podcast Alley, where you can find thousands more podcasts. You can listen to the podcasts directly from the website.

Four: Follow PR practitioners on Twitter.

Are you a public relations student (or recent grad) just getting started using Twitter?  Or are you a seasoned PR practitioner looking for some fine folks to learn from? Try following some (or all) of these people or organizations in my Twitter Starter Pack for PR Students. They all have something in common: they tweet useful or interesting information for people involved in public relations.

Five: Watch the news on TV.

Yes, I said “watch the news on TV.” I mean on a real TV, with a complete newscast, not just bits and bobs that you catch online. I start off every day a steaming mug or three of chicory coffee and at least an hour of broadcast news, usually with 30 or so minutes of local news followed by the  Today Show. By knowing what’s going on in the world, it helps frame the snippets of stories I read or hear online throughout the day. To be sure that I’m keeping up on the news, I also listen to the podcast version of  NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me weekly news quiz. (I sometimes even play the Lightning Round of Wait Wait in class to see how much my students know about what’s going on in the world.)

Your suggestions?

What additional resources would you recommend?

(NOTE: This post is an updated version of one I wrote in last summer.)

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Fully Charged Social Media Strategies #PRCA12

On April 16, I will be presenting “Fully Charged Social Media Strategies” for the Public Relations Council of Alabama’s PR:Recharge Conference. For links to topics I’ll discuss, see my Fully Charged Social Media Strategies Pinterest board.

Fully Charged Social Media Strategies

 

Stay tuned!

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Social Media News Release Assignment

Daily News Walkby
Photo Credit: John Fraissinet via Compfight

For your final assignment in Writing for Public Relations, you have a choice between two projects. You can either prepare a Social Media News Release OR write a detailed blog post about Social Media News Releases.

This assignment is due in BlackBoard on April 29, 2012.

Option #1: Prepare a Social Media News Release

  • Using either PitchEngine, PRXbuilder or your WordPress blog create a Social Media News Release for your client.
  • Feel free to adapt a news release or personality profile that you have already written this semester to this new format.
  • See pages 136-139  in Public Relations Writing and Media Techniques on creating your SMNR (NOTE: Your book calls them Smart Media Releases or Multimedia Releases.)
  • Include one news release of at least 250 words, along with
    • at least one photo that you took to accompany the story
    • at least two relevant quotations
    • at least two relevant hyperlinks
    • boilerplate information about your client
    • tags that help describe your release & client
  • If any of the information you are using in the release is not factual, you’ll need to make this very clear with a disclaimer.
  • In BlackBoard, submit the URL to your SMNR.

Option #2: Write a Blog Post about Social Media News Releases

  • Blog post should be 500-1000 words. (NOTE: This will be in much more depth than other blog posts you’ve written.)
  • Include the following in the blog post
    • What is a Social Media News Release?
    • What are the advantages & disadvantages of a SMNR?
    • When should a PR practitioner consider using a SMNR?
    • Offer links to at least two websites that will help one create a SMNR
    • Provide links to SMNRs that at least five different organizations have created
    • Provide 5-10 tips for SMNR creation
  • There should be at least ten hyperlinks in your blog post. ALWAYS link to sites where you get your information; not doing so is plagiarism.
  • In BlackBoard, submit the URL to your blog post about the SMNR.
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7 Things Small Businesses Need to Know About Social Media NOW

This afternoon, I have the opportunity to speak to a group of Lakeland area small business owners. Below are the slides I will be using.

7 Things Small Businesses Need to Know About Social Media NOW

And here’s a link to the social bookmarks for the sites and tools I will discuss in the presentation.

Questions about social media?

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NewsU & Inbound Marketing U Courses for Social Media for PR & Journalism

For my COMM 4633 Social Media for PR & Journalism Class 

Below you will find several additional resources to augment your course materials for COMM 4633. Each student will be assigned to read/complete one of the resources. During Week 12, we will have an in-class Speed Learning activity where you will share what you learned with your classmates. (This activity will be discussed in more detail after Spring Break.)

Additionally, after you watch or complete any of these, you may wish to write a blog post about what you learned; these posts could become some of your PR Connections for the semester.

Poynter Institute News University Courses

 

Build and Engage Local Audiences Online

Learn why local content is essential to your survival, and how you can continue being the chief information source to your community, no matter what the platform.

In this course, you’ll hear editors and publishers from across the industry share their stories and their strategies for success. Talk to a virtual colleague to think through some of the questions and concerns you’ll want to address. And test your knowledge of online audiences and the tools you can use to drive them to your site. Along the way, you’ll collect the info you’ll need to create an action plan for your newsroom.

Five Steps to Multimedia Storytelling

Want to spread your wings beyond print reporting, but don’t know where to start? In this course, you’ll learn the basic steps of telling your story with multimedia. You’ll discover ways to map out your story before you head out to do your reporting. And you’ll learn when to use such tools as audio, video and graphics.

Multimedia Reporting: Covering Breaking News

In the days that followed Hurricane Katrina, online news organizations took stock of their skills and resources and turned out some of the best work to date. They sent video reporters out on boats to float through the streets of New Orleans. They fashioned multimedia blogs out of the simplest of technologies. They set up forums for citizen participation. And a few of them saved lives in the process.

The Community Journalism Series: Strategies for Managing Local Contributors

For years, newspapers have worked with user-generated content (UGC) in the form of letters to the editor and similar contributions. Now, news organizations of all shapes and sizes are grappling with a dizzying array of community-written content. Non-staffers are publishing things such as full-length stories, blog posts and multimedia content.

This trend provides new opportunities for your publication to engage with audiences, spotlight new voices and address under-covered topics and communities.

Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing University Webinars

 

How to Blog Effectively for Business by Ann Handley and Mac Collier

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Crash Course to Get Found by Lee Odden

Social Media and Building Community by Chris Brogan

Successful Business Uses for Facebook and LinkedIn by Elyse Trager

PR for Inbound Marketing  by Todd Defren

Twitter for Business by Laura Fitton

Social Media for Big Businesses by Paula Berg

 

The Science of Social Media by Dan Zarella

Enchanting Your Prospects by Guy Kawasaki

Social and Mobile Marketing by Jamie Turner

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Assignments & Options for Writing for PR #COMM4333

Photo Credit: "letters from captivity VII: illiterate" by sternenrauschen

The Writing Assignments portion of Writing for PR and Advertising has some static components that all students will complete, as well as several that you can choose among. To earn credit for the assignments, they must be submitted in BlackBoard by their due dates.

All students will complete the following:

With your client in mind, make your choices from among the available options; be sure to complete assignments totaling 250 points from this section. See your syllabus for specific due dates for each assignment:

We will discuss these assignments in more detail in class during Weeks 6 & 7.

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7 Things Churches Need to Know About Social Media Now

The Rev. Mary Beene, my pastor when I was a member of Faith Presbyterian Church in Rincon, Ga., asked me to be a speaker at the Savannah Presbytery’s Leadership Development Conference on one of my favorite topics: social media. You can see the slides below.

7 Things Churches Need to Know About Social Media Now

View more PowerPoint from Barbara Nixon

All sites and links mentioned in the presentation can be found in my Diigo bookmarks.

Now, a question for you: how does your church use social media?

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Live-Tweeting SEU’s Annual Chocolate Decadence Luncheon

Students in my Social Media for PR and Advertising class got to go on #themostawesomefieldtripever — we headed over to the campus restaurant for the annual Chocolate Decadence Luncheon. While there, we took photos and tweeted about our experiences . . . and ate a wee bit of chocolate, too.